Solace

Tchaiko Omawale

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When her father dies, SOLE 17 is forced to live with her estranged overbearing grandmother IRENE. She numbs her emotions with food. Desperate to escape to New York she finds a performance art grant and recruits the forbidden rebellious neighbors JASMINE 19 and GUEDADO 18.

Sole’s escape plan is complicated after discovering Jasmine cuts herself. Triggered, Sole binges and flakes on her new friends. She gets them back on board but fails to juggle Irene’s emotional demands, Jasmine’s jealous sabotaging and her own bingeing. Irene discovers Sole’s plans, they fight and Sole hides in the bliss of drugs and friendship at Jasmine’s house. When Guedado falls for Sole she decides to diet. Without the comfort of food her anxiety about the grant is projected on to her friends. She parties, she numbs and in the fog of diet pills and starvation passes out at a party.

Back at Irene’s house she isolates and binges. When she’s awarded the grant she decides to throw out all her food, but she can’t help herself. It’s in this dark desperate space that Irene catches her eating from the garbage. Sole can’t run anymore and surrenders to Irene’s comfort finally facing her pain.